They linked arms as they went, stumbling over the tussocks at every step. It was strange how the sudden vanishing of the cottage left them forlorn. It had been their one sure substantial hold on life. They were in their own world while they could touch those ruined stones, but now they walked in air. Nevertheless Dunbar walked forward confidently. He thought that he recognised this landmark and that. "Now we veer a bit to the left," he said. "We should be off the moor in another step." They walked forward. Suddenly Hesther pulled back, crying. "Look out! Look out!" Another instant and they would have walked forward into space. The mist here twisted up into thinning spirals as though to show them what they had escaped; they could just see the sharp black line of the cliff. Far, far beneath them the sea purred like a cat. They stopped where they were as though fixed like images into the wall of the fog. Dunbar whispered: "That's awful. Another moment. . . ." It was Hesther who pulled them together again. "Let's turn sharp about," she said, "and walk straight in front of us. At least we escape the sea." They turned as she had said and then walked forward, but in the minds of all of them there was the same thought. Some one was playing with them, some one like an evil Will-o'-the-wisp was leading them, now here, now there. Almost they could see his red poll gleaming through the fog and could hear his silvery voice running like music up and down the scale of the mist. They were, three of them, worn with the events of the night. They were beginning to walk somnambulistically. Harkness found in himself now a strange kind of intimacy with the Fog. Yes, spell it with a capital letter. The Fog. The FOG. Some emanation of himself, rolling out of him, friendly and also hostile. He and Crispin were of the Fog together. They had both created it, and as they were the good and evil of the Fog so was all Life, shapeless, rolling hither and thither, but having in its elements Good and Evil in eternal friendship and eternal enmity. Every part of his body was aching. His legs were so weary that they dragged with him, protesting; his eyes were for ever closing, his head nodding. He stumbled as he walked, and at his side, step by step in time the Fog accompanied him, a mountainous grey-swathed giant. He was talking, words were for ever pouring from him, words mixed with fog, so that they were damp and thick before ever they were free. "In life there are not, you know, enough moments of clear understanding. Between nations, between individuals, those moments are too often confused by winds that, blowing from nowhere in particular, ruffle the clear water where peace of mind and love of soul for soul are reflected. . . . Now the waters are clear. Let us look down."